Sunday, 17 May 2009

Eurovision 2009 - Norway win, as predicted by Google

Google's Eurovision Predictor tool aimed to pick the winner for Eurovision 2009. The Google Eurovision Predictor took Google search volumes for all the performers and translated these into Eurovision points.

The Google Predictor has consistently shown Norway to be the leader and the last version I saw showed a potential Norway points total of 388:

Google Eurovision predictor showing Norway

Last night after 42 countries had cast their scores, Norway did indeed win the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 with a record score of 387 points (just one point away from the Google prediction:

Norway win Eurovision 2009

So Google were able to pick the winner - a good illustration of how there are clues in data and being able to interpret consumer internet behaviour can give an edge / be used for effective predictive modelling.

(The other point of note is that Google's model was effective at picking some of the popular Western European entries, but missed the leading lights from Eastern Europe / the former Soviet Republics. Azerbaijan, Armenia etc are not showing on the Google Predictor tool and I assume this is a combination of factors (everything from Google penetration to general internet usage.))